Women and gay men are 'worst drivers'

Source: Daily Telegraph (a paper that leans to the right)

Women and gay men are likely to be the worst drivers, a new study has shown.

Research has revealed that both perform poorly in tasks involving navigation and spatial awareness when compared to heterosexual men.

Psychologists at Queen Mary, University of London, who conducted the study, believe the findings mean driving in a strange environment would be more difficult for gay men and women than for straight male motorists.

Both tend to rely on local landmarks to get around, and are also slower to take in spatial information.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IWHVYNEWVM1LJQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2008/01/03/ngay103.xml

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Straight from the University of sexism. No suprise to find this story in a RW paper really is it? :eyes:

There's more to good driving than "spatial awareness". The problem with women drivers is that they tend to jabber on their cell phones rather than attending to their driving. I don't know about gays.

phones who almost hit me were male. Funny.

I use mine from time to time. But am I wrong to have observed many, many more women on cell phones in public? In their cars (usually an SUV), walking in parking lots, pushing their carts in the grocery store, in doctors' waiting rooms, in restaurants, always on the phone. I even saw one girl on a bicycle talking on her cell phone.

Maybe you see something different. Would you go so far as to say that most cell phone usage in public is by men? I'll try to watch for this during the coming week, but I think I know what I'll see.

as well, and Yes, it's the guys mostly who are the ones yakking and driving, but that's probably because nobody tells them they are ever doing anything wrong. :sarcasm:

that are driving inappropriately then standard vehicle plates.

I didn't know insurance companies id the insured as straight or gay.

How come our Car Insurance rates are lower?

my Mom does most of the driving with my step-dad. She has driven in foreign countries and done an outstanding job.

OTOH, I let my husband do all the driving when we're together because I hate it.

it's assumed that "pack" behavior in males will turnout into risky driving at younger ages.

It may be that women are worse drivers overall...but insurance companies calculate overall risk value determined primarily by who is more likely to end up crashing their cars. The young men may be better drivers overall...but because they're more likely to engage in risky driving at certain moments, their at bigger risk to end up crashing.

Therefore, the overall result is that the insurance company raises their rates.

I guess young men have to straighten up and not engage in "risky" behaviour so they don't end up crashing so much.

We aren't supposed to base our social policies and opinons on actual hard data. Straight guys' feelings will get hurt. Those fragile little egos will shatter.

filling up the ranks of our military.

they are completely unable to function if they have a gay guy nearby.

who knew that straight men are SUCH delicate creatures?

:shrug:

It's disgusting. It's criminal. It's tolerated by the brass.

:hi:

The study refers to the ability to navigate, not how safe drivers are.

It might relate to efficiency of driving, if you were a taxi driver, for example. Beyond that the entire premise (or at least the summary conclusions) of this "study" strikes me as ridiculous.

Actually I agree, the overall premise is pretty lame.

More miles behind the wheel, increased chance of a claim, higher rates.

Rates are not based on driver safety, they are based on number of claims. That said, people who try to multitask behind the wheel are the most dangerous drivers.

When you are driving, you have ONE job, moving a lethal weapon safely from one point to another. Trying to squeeze in a business call, doing a shopping list, planning a roster for your softball team, tweaking your appearance, eating, whatever, does not belong in a moving vehicle.

If I were in charge of things, there would be a cable embedded in the highway that would disrupt cell phone signals or a cell tower/GPS tracking system that would prevent non-emmergency calls if the phone is moving more than say 10-20 mph.

To see how well straight men do at interior decorating or houskeeping or cutting hair?

Why does anyone read this trash?

I wasn't aware gays were also included now.

My spatial relations suck. When I took the differential Aptitude Test, or what ever they called it in that day, I had to promise I would never try to fly a plane. I am a woman. My daughter, who is also a woman, scored in the 98th percentile for spatial relations and the the 99th percentile for mechanical reasoning. So I think more than gender or sexual orientation is at play.
And if we are going to stereotype, if gay man have such lousy spatial relations, why are they such FABULOUS interior decorators?????

She must be gay!

:sarcasm:

It starts at an early age. Young boys play with toys and do other things that develop spatial relations skills and perceptions. Most girls do not. Boys take things apart and put them back together. Girls do not. With the possible exception of soccer, boys play games that develop these skills, girls do not. The deficit in these skills between genders starts at a early age. There is nothing that says women are less able. It's the differences in development.

I had a calculus teacher once that told us if you want to develop math skills in a child, give them lots of puzzles to do. All kinds of puzzles. Puzzles develop math skills. After all, doing a math problem is solving a puzzle by using the known to figure out the unknown. Puzzles also develop the ability to recognize patterns. I think spatial relations skills and math skills are closely related. Both sexes would benefit if everyone did this.

JMHO.

You should modify that to say "SOME girls do not." Some girls do. Yours truly, for example.

Most do not. I think we can agree on that.

I tried to modify my post to say "most" but there's a glitch in the matrix right now that wouldn't make the change. I'll try later before my hour is up to change it. If not, I agree with you that it is not an absolute that all girls do not.

I believe it is partly biological, due to studies on women that felt more like men that I had read about. In those studies, they WERE more like men (in terms of math skills, spacial relationships, etc.)

Sure it can be partly due to peer pressure or how a person is raised; but as a girl who very secretly did girly things because I wanted to keep up my tomboy image; I know it isn't as simple as that.

I'm extraordinarily good at solving spatial problems. I can take damn near anything apart and put it back together; I can put together things that I didn't take apart. I can easily visualize the inner workings of something, the compound angles of a piece of wooden molding or the relationships of electronic theory. And I have always been somewhat gifted in that regard even as a kid.

But my math skills suck. It is like the portion of my brain that is supposed to do calculations just doesn't work; I couldn't add three numbers in my head if you held a gun to it. It's damn frustrating because it has kept me from doing many of the things I've always wanted to do, like engineering.

So either I'm the exception that proves the rule, or your theory is wrong.

My house could use some serious help, my fashion sense stinks, and yet I am an utter map master, remembering maps to new cities that I learn on the plane and never look at again. From age 9 or so forward, I've been the navigator.
I have never had a moving violation.
My niece-who is oddly female- is even better with maps, and started out in life as a Teamster, with a perfect driving record. Her brother gets lost at the mall, in his own wee city, it matters not, he is always lost.
This article is from a UK paper that is really righty.

I had to giggle at that.

:hi:

It has one known physical marker (so far). Ring finger length.

Male or female, it wires the brain for greater spatial recognition, etc.

My ring fingers are almost as long as my middle. I have spatial recognition superior to most men in testing situations.

BBC did a great series on gender differences. These studies were included.

Would love to discuss more, but I'm late.


My Favorite Master Artist: Karen Parker GhostWoman Studios

As a physical scientist, I find it ridiculous that they call this "science". The questions are openly biased. They begin by asking questions that can be expected to be answered a certain way based on the social training of men and women; they define answers they expect from men to be "masculine" and answers they expect from women to be "feminine", and then they claim that their results indicate men have more "masculine" brains and women have more "feminine" brains.

The whole point of science is to study something in an unbiased way. These people aren't even trying to be unbiased.

I suspect that my performance would have puzzled them. I have a "masculine" brain (I was way better than the average for males in analytical and spatial tasks), finger proportions that are much more "masculine" that the average for men, etc., and yet I prefer masculine faces. I'm a woman.

What a steaming pile. :thumbsdown:


Be afraid: Women or gay men could be behind the wheel of any car
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JAFVDO4HMUY4XQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2008/01/03/ngay103.xml

Oh wait, um, I mean they shouldn't be allowed to get married. Damn, I keep forgetting the latest hate mantra.

I'm gay and I don't use landmarks to navigate. My heterosexual twin sister does, though. But I think we are about equal when it comes to safety. Our older straight brother gets into wrecks at least once a year, it seems.

but that may be because I'm willing to stop and ask for directions. :7

It's like admitting defeat :)

I mean...oh, wait. That's England?




Never mind.

:shrug:

According to the author of this study, anyways. Rahman has concluded in his research that homosexuality is "hardwired".

The important opinion is Donnie McClurkin's. What does he have to say about it, has Obama released an encyclical yet?

I can out navigate both of my straight brothers.

The triumvirate risk factors among young males of testosterone, alcohol, and fast cars (or mega heavy SUVs) have long been known to insurance companies....

Regardless of gender. We have a large Spanish population here in Western Michigan and for some reason they drive scared. The second worst group would be the elderly, IMHO of course. I use the word Spanish because their are so many from Puerto Rico, Cuba, etc...

The Spanish refer to people from Spain. I believe the term you are looking for is Latino (or Latina).

:bounce:

It would be hard to drive in a second culture, though. You might drive badly in Mexico City.

and I never drive scared. And if you ever have driven in Puerto Rico or in NYC, you'll notice that Puerto Rican drivers (in particular) are very aggressive drivers. I've heard the same is true in Lima, Peru from a Peruvian friend. He told me that the official driving test involved driving a car through the busiest intersection in the capital city. If the person successfully navigated that intersection during peak traffic time, they're given the license. Perhaps the Michigan population of Latinos is composed of undocumented latinos...that would make them more worried about crashing and being stopped by a cop.

Me...I drive like the devil is after me.

Wouldn't you drive scared if you had a license and weren't here legally? I have seen two cars collide at an intersection and both drivers get out and run, both illegals, a very bad and unsafe practice for everyone on the road in Michigan.

That's odd. Where I live it's the cabbies who are the worst drivers...

which has nothing to do with ability to navigate.

"Queen Mary"? "Women and gay men"?

Is this a joke?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mary,_University_of_London

For some reason, after various mergers, they've dropped the 'College' that the main predecessor used to use. It's named after George V's wife, same as the ship was.

It's a real live bona fide red brick in London.

a study that documents overall statistical output...unless the study is flawed.

Assuming the science is sound, it's possible the results are correct...even if some men's driving skills are less than some women's or other gay mans.

I'm not willing to discount the findings as sexism just yet, but I'd like more evidence and a clear explanation of how they got to their results.

Or at least the article; I had to search to find the story.

The methodology is simple: take a set of straight men, gay men, and women, and put them through computerized navigation tests. Some of the trials involve abstract directional clues ('north', 'south', probably 'intersecting'), others involve landmarks.

Take away the landmarks, women and gay men apparently do worse than straight men. Take away the abstract clues, women and gay men and stright men do the same, or close enough. Apparently this is a wrong summary because the authors said that on some tasks gay men and straight men did about the same. Might be worth tracking down the article just to see what they were.

This classification isn't original with these researchers. Last year there was at least one study that tested men, straight and gay, on standard spatial processing tasks. Gay men did as poorly as women, overall. (And the use of 'gay men', 'men', and 'women' is generic: "Cats have tails" isn't falsified by Manx cats because the use of a bare plural is routinely interpreted as meaning the typical or average representative or token.).

The really aggressive weaving in out of traffic driver? All.

The really distracted putting on makeup driver? Mostly female

The really slow blundering driver? All.

The drunk? All.

The don't know where the hell I'm going driver? All.

The cell-phone chatter? All.

The disciplining the kids in the back of the SUV driver? Mostly female.

The I'm so mechanically inept that I probably shouldn't operate a can opener let alone a motor vehicle driver? All.


Yep, my research clearly shows women are the worst drivers. :sarcasm:

lesbian bikers111!!!1

...half doing two jobs.

Maybe in the UK, but not here. The worst drivers here are right-wing-assholes driving pickup trucks!

In my book, who ever gets in more accidents is "worse"....and who gets in more accidents?

http://blogs.drive.com.au/2007/05/women_better_drivers_than_men.html

All that bs on "spacial relationships" means nothing when you don't use good common sense.

To be fair though, I wonder if men are more often paid their insurance claim than women-hence jacking up the cost for men in general.

good test. The insurance companies aren't going under. Why do they assign the highest premiums to young men? Gee, there's a reason. Spatial relationships are meaningless when risk taking is involved.

same as DUI. The study I saw found that it didn't make much difference if the phone was hand's fee or not. Think on that.

(I do not jabber on the phone while driving down the road; that's what voice mail is for.)

for decades. Poor gay men - this is the first time I've seen them saddled with it.

For decades I have run across studies showing men having a better sense of direction then women. Then I read a report on examination of London Taxi Driver's Brains (After they died from natural causes). The study showed that the drivers had an extra large section of that part of the Brain believe to deal with direction. The purpose of the study was to see HOW extra use of one section of the brain (By Taxi Cab Drivers noted for getting around London) would affect the over all Brain. The study found that the Taxi Drivers had an EXTRA LARGE part of their brain that dealt with directions.

The significance of this study was that your brain will developed and emphasis that parts of the Brian that help you do your job. Thus since Taxi Drivers need a sense of Direction, their brain tend to expand that area of the brain that helps them navigate.

Lets look at men and women. When both are young both are guided around by their parents, but as they age the males tend to be permitted to go further and take their sisters with them. When these children start to date, it is generally the male that picks up the female and their go where he directs them to (The location may be her decision, but he tends to lead, while she follows). Thus males tend to make greater use of their sense of Direction and thus develop that part of their brain, while females just leave the males "lead" while they concentrate of things MORE IMPORTANT TO THEM (Which tends to be communication, thus women talk more than men).

Now the reported being cited is based on people in England. While cars exists in England and people drive, they also have something called "Public Transit". Thus people can get around quite nicely WITHOUT having any sens of Directions, just knowing what stop to get off at. This is NOT true of most of the US (New York City is considered the only US city where most people do NOT use cars, but use other transit instead). Thus most American MUST DRIVE, and women MUST drive. Thus I suspect a less significant findings among US males and females (Do to the fact Women in the US must drive themselves much more then their are driven by males).

My point is the difference can be explained by the level of EXPERIENCE of both sexes in terms of movement and driving then anything else (Including their sex).

As to gay men, I question the size of the pool used. Kinsey found about 10% of the population was "gay". Subsequent checking into his data found no valid statistical support for this finding. Subsequent reports also found it impossible to come up with valid numbers (People lie, and there is no way to correct for this without massive violation of people privacy). Most observers believe the 10% figure is to high, they like 3%, but like the 10% number no valid statistics to support this number.

Anyway, remember this is an English report. While Homosexuals live everywhere, they tend to concentrate in urban areas where mass transit exists. Thus they are less likely to drive and less likely to develop the skills to drive. One Michigan Taxi Drivers made a comment about "Spanish" (later changed to "Latino" drivers being bad, but again may be the result of the lack of experience
then anything else. Most Latino immigrants into the US tend to come from Rural areas of Southern Mexico or Central America. Car usage is limited in both areas and given that most immigrants from such areas tend to be poor, many did NOT drive till they arrived in the US (And those the did drive, did not drive on high speed roads with the heavy traffic most US urban areas are noted for).

My point the problem may be DRIVING EXPERIENCE more than anything else.

The big question is how much of the differences is do to Social Pressure (What Society expects of both sexes) AND what is inherent in both sexes.

Males are generally PERMITTED to be more violent, no one has determined how much of this is part of being male OR how much is from what males believe they should be (i.e. how much is inherent in being male and how much is social pressure on males) but males are clearly more violent than females.

Females are known to have a better ability to learn a new language, how much of this is expectations as being female, and how much is inherent is unknown (Through given that woman tend to leave their families while males tend to stay WITH their extended family, females in ancient times needed the ability to learn other languages). Even in Chimpanzees it is noted that FEMALES leave the family their grew up in, while MALES stay in such groups (Thus all the Male Adults in a Chimpanzee group are all male relatives to each other, while the females are from other bands).

Back to driving, driving is NOT generally a act of VIOLENCE, it is an act of navigating. It is NOT an act of communicating. These are the two big differences between the sexes, but neither is involved with driving. The better explanation is experience, which may be the result of Social attitudes to how women and men should act (or by inherent differences) but it is experience that makes a person better in ANYTHING, and driving is such an act that improves with experience.

The guy had to move in with his in laws.

CraftyGal navigates by landmarks. This drives me buggy 'cause it's difficult for me to give her directions.

One time I was trying to get her to come to my office (I'd moved). Here's the conversation:

CraftyGal: OK, I've gotten off the bus.
TrogL: Head south on Main.
CG: Which way's south?
TgL: What direction are you facing?
CG: I don't know.
TgL: Can you see a big stone building?
CG: Yes, but I don't know what direction that is.
TgL: Walk towards the big stone building. That'll take you south.
CG: I don't know which way south is.
TgL: Just walk towards the big stone building. When you pass it I should be able to see you.
CG: I'm at the big stone building. Now what?
TgL: Just keep walking straight.
CG: But I don't know where I'm going - I don't recognize any landmarks. (gets upset)
TgL: Just keep walking straight for one more block and I'll be able to see you.
CG: OK, but I don't know where I am. (starts crying)
TgL: I can see you. Look to your left....no your other left.
CG: Which building?
TgL: Just turn left and walk across the street.
CG: But I don't know where I'm going.
TgL: Just go in the big brown building and come up to the 4th floor. I'll meet you at the elevator.

Say, take exit #### and turn left towards town X. I hate it when people use landmarks like stores: "turn left where you see Best Buy" or whatever. Not everybody knows where north and south is, considering that most streets are not due N-S or E-W but meander every which way. It drives me made if someone tells me to "go north on street X". Unless you have a compass in your head which most people do not and I certainly do not. I can do it in my town, because I have a general sense of which direction is which but in an unfamiliar place, you'd better use street names and numbers.

Street names and exit numbers, landmarks, keeping a mental tally of right and left turns, by the sun and moon. Sometimes street names establish cardinal directions by convention--sort of "map grid north" and not "mapnorth". Sometimes they don't.

And, yes, there have been more than a few times when navigating by the sun (or the moon) was a lifesaver (and times when I was royally pissed because I was lost and it was too cloudy).

And those streets are laid out in a grid. Avenues go N-S and streets go E-W (or maybe it is the other way around- it's been a while). And then they are numbered in order from the center of the city so it is easy to look up an address and figure out where it. 2445 64th avenue south is between 24th and 25th streets, for example. I know a lot of cities in the east are like that but here all the streets seem to meander. I know I am heading south if the water is on my left.

...and there's a lot more of "us" (women and gay men), so whether or not our driving skills are better or worse almost doesn't matter. We're a force with which to be reckoned!

included lesbians, and they did about as well as straight men in spatial tasks.


Bisexuals were intermediate. The study referred to in the OP probably couldn't find enough subjects, or didn't have enough money.

:dunce:

:shrug:

Tiny (i.e., shorter than me, which is already way under the average) - little ladies, usually of Asian appearance, who can barely see over the steering wheels over their large cars are the ones who scare me. They seem to be mostly Asian, but we have a very large Asian population so that skews the sample.

Elderly white guys who wear hats while they drive are also a menace, judging by my sample size of 1 (who was slowly and carefully driving down the line in the middle of the road: too bad it was a lane separator). And young guys who drive red cars: everyone who's ever zoomed past me at 80+ on the freeway was in a red car.

And the entire state of Oregon, IMHO :-)

If I may be permitted a sexist stereotype!

Old ladies come in second, but of the older generations, often did not drive at all. Neither or my grandmothers had a license. My mother does, and she's scary - very hesitant and flustered.

Everyone knows they overwhelmingly display of good judgment, patience and skill.

:sarcasm:

NT!

simply confirms what's been shown time and time again with respect to gender differences in spatial orientation and certain sorts of information processing and prioritizing.

Doesn't really have anything to do with causation- it's just a general tendency.

Given other recent research into similarities in structures in the gay male and female brains, it's not surprising that similar difference would be seen here as well.

So what?

I have read this a few times and it appears to me the researchers have made a false conclusion. Taking in information differently, even more slowly, really doesn't translate into "worst drivers." IMO, this would be no different than a study showing dog owners live longer than cat owners and concluding cat owners are more sickly and less healthy. It is a false conclusion. The 'worst' drivers are distracted ones; drunk, cell phone users, eating, having a smoking baby in a fur coat in the back seat who won't stop screaming...shit like that tend to make people the worst drivers.

Personally, I find this somewhat interesting because it is equating what is considered a female attribute (using landmarks and such) and applying it to gay men. I did a similar experiment in college for a linguistics class, but wasn't able to draw in good conclusions.

I doubt the researchers made that generalization; but it's an attention-grabbing headline, the kind a dullwitted editor would likely come up with.

But in general, women do worse in tasks involving spatial reasoning than men do. Give them all the time in the world, and they still do worse. This has been known for decades, tested cross-culturally and cross-racially; it's an attribute, statistically speaking, of H. sapiens. What's new--the research was done in the last year or two--is having the results extended to gay and bisexual men and women, and seeing that sexual orientation correlates fairly well, and not just sex.

These researchers are just seeing if the previous results (perhaps from this team, I didn't keep track of where that research was done) on sexual orientation/spatial reasoning transferred to something more applied and less theoretical.

Every time I've been driven off the road on my bike, it's always been some macho man in a two-sizes-too-big truck.

and i know how to put a big ol thing through some pretty tight spaces.
and i've never had a moving violation.

it had to be done.

Women are safer drivers, IMO. Every guy I know takes stupid, unnecessary risks on the road.

Young men tend to drive faster, not wear seatbelts, drive more, reckless driving, and possibly dui’s.

I was already doing 80, but that wasn't enough for Mr. Testosterone.

Spacial acuity isn't the whole of it, anyway.

:rofl:

than 40 years. I've totaled 2 cars and a motorcycle and broke my left femur in the bike accident. She on the other hand has never had even a fender bender or received a traffic ticket (I've had several), but I'm still the better driver cause I got a d___! :evilgrin: yaaaay men!

and I hate directions involving "the liquor store on the corner". My dad LOVES giving directions with lots of landmarks, though, and he sure ain't gay.

Give me a freeway number and a direction and I'm cool.

In America, at least, driving prowess is strongly associated with macho posturing, and a male, especially, faces disproportionate ridicule for not developing skills behind the wheel. It is conceivable that women and gay men might not be as susceptible to this meme? I dunno--hope I'm not buying into bigotry here.

I suspect, though, that machismo causes a lot more accidents than it prevents, and that this wasn't factored into mere tests of driving skills.

on edit: http://tinyurl.com/2mtn6h is a better link.

Is that machismo too?

...there are different ways to be stupid behind the wheel. I don't suppose that any are uniquely male or female.

Try a google news search and you'll see much different headlines and copy.

e.g.:

http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=au&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1125737464

The gist:

Dr Qazi Rahman, from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences used virtual reality scenarios to investigate if spatial learning and memory in humans can be linked to sexual orientation.

Differences in spatial learning and memory (our ability to record and recall information about our environment) are common between men and women. It has been shown that men consistently outperform women on tasks requiring navigation and discovering hidden objects; whereas women are more successful at tests which require them to remember where those objects lie in a particular space.

This is the first study to investigate if those differences are also true for gay, lesbian and straight individuals.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080103135205.htm

The Abstract:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/116328263/ABSTRACT

are responding to the headline, the lede, which was written by the editor. They're not responding to the study results themselves.

The study sounds fine. It's in line with 35 years (and more) of research on how men and women differ on tests of spatial reasoning, as amended by finding from the last couple of years on how gay men (and women) differ from straight men and women on those tests.

Overall, the study's one of those, "well, I guess somebody had to show the sky is blue, just for the record" studies. That gay men did as well as straight men on some tasks is intriguing though, and makes you wonder what they were--the prediction is that they're tasks that don't involve spatial reasoning, as defined for the purposes of the standard tests.

I've known very few drivers with worse direction sense than me.

I wonder if I'm gay... or a woman?!?! :scared: OMG!! THIS IS HUGH!!!!!1!1! haha

that they are recognized by the insurance industry (and anyone on the road with them) as being high risk individuals.

No words except, thanks again for being an embarrasment to our gender assholes!!!

What the scientist have done is a - valid and reputable, for all I know to the contrary, although I haven't checked - examining correlation between spatial awareness and sex and sexual orientation.

They've found some interesting but not implausible results - it's been known for a long time that women are, on average (and never forget the "on average") less good at tasks involving spatial awareness than men; I wasn't aware of any correlation with orientation but it doesn't amaze me.

They've then made some rather cautious statements about women and gays finding it harder to learn to navigate in an unknown environment.

Then the editor, looking for a headline, has come up with "Women and gays are worst drivers", and they've added a pair of inverted commas to acknowledge that that's not actually true.

This is not atypical of science journalism.

Just check out reply #6 about the cutline.

I tend to post newspaper articles in the science forum if they are relevent and of interest and it's quite usual for someone to give them a thorough roasting for shoddy journalism.

At least I could be sure that by posting this on here DUers would give this article the treatment it deserves.